Investigating a Supreme Court Justice
Retreating to the political side of Angry Bear. Atrios, had “You Could Fire Him” up on Friday. This concerns Justice Kavanaugh and how he was pushed into the position on SCOTUS by upper management (trump for those who are unassuming). There are some overlooked issues with his application “references” for the position as gathered by the FBI. The boss told the FBI not to review them. It also appears the boss did not care about the references either and did not bother to read them.
Atrios is citing an Esquire article detailing this which I am going to do similar. He is also referring to the very same references.
FBI Director Christopher Wray had a tough day in Thursday’s hearing in front of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. First there was fake tough guy Cruz putting his cowboy boot he claims to wear in Congress. On the back of the boot is a flag, the Gonzalez battle flag. The Gonzalez battle flag appears on the FBI extremist list as a potential indicator of extremism. Rather than be a Senator, Cruz dropped to another level of stupid in challenging Cruz.
These questions and answers begin at the 02:09:49 mark in the video or you can read them below as taken from the Snopes article or the Esquire article. Two articles cited so as not to miss the testimony.
Whitehouse starts off with his inquiry into Kavanaugh’s investigation before becoming a Justice.
Whitehouse: As you know, we are now entering the fourth year of a frustrating saga that began with an August 2019 letter from me and Sen. Coons, regarding the Kavanaugh supplemental background investigation. And I’d like to try to get that matter wrapped up.
First, is it true that after Kavanaugh-related tips were separated from regular tipline traffic, they were forwarded to White House counsel without investigation?
Wray: I apologize in advance that it has been frustrating for you. We have tried to be clear in our process. So when it comes to the tipline, we wanted to make sure that the White House had all the information we have, so when the hundreds of calls start coming in, we gathered those up, reviewed them and provided them to the White House…
Whitehouse: Without investigation?
(long pause)
Wray: We reviewed them and then provided them to…
Whitehouse: You reviewed them for purposes of separating them from tipline traffic, but did not further investigate the ones that related to Kavanaugh, correct?
Wray: Correct.
Whitehouse: Is it also true that, in that supplemental BI, the FBI took direction from the White House as to whom the FBI would question and even what questions the FBI would ask?
Wray: So, it is true that, consistent with the longstanding process that we have had going all the way back to at least the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, and continue to follow currently under the Biden administration, that in a limited supplemental BI, we take direction from the requesting entity, which in this case was the White House, as to what follow-up they want. That’s the direction we’ve followed. That’s the direction we’ve consistently followed throughout the decades, frankly. You asked specifically about “who” and “what”?
Whitehouse: Yeah. Is it true?
Wray: It is true as to the “who.” I’m not sure as I sit here whether it’s also true as to the “what questions,” but it is true as to the “who” we interviewed.
So, we have a SCOTUS Justice who was not properly vetted or investigated by the FBI because a corrupt “pres” said no. I guess we could give him two weeks of severance and send him on his way?
“Eschaton: You Could Fire Him” (eschatonblog.com)
“FBI Director: White House Guided Probe into Brett Kavanaugh’s Background” (esquire.com)
“Wray: Trump WH Directed Kavanaugh Background Probe in 2018” | Snopes.com
“Meeting | Hearings” | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
It is pretty clear that conservative America wanted to elect a ‘bad boy’ President and in Donald Trump they found what they were looking for.
See also Trump Asked Aide Why His Generals Couldn’t Be Like Hitler’s, Book Says
NY Times – Aug 8
SCOTUS?
For me, the point is that reports were prepared on the appropriateness of Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the Supreme Court, and Trump didn’t read them. He didn’t read much. Maybe Golf Digest? As President, he got to decide what to read, and chose not to. So, let’s reelect this guy and get more of the same ‘bad boy’ behavior.
As for removing Kavanaugh, or any of the others from SCOTUS, just elect enough Dems to make impeachment(s) feasible. For lying under oath during their confirmation hearings. The GOP is so awful these days, how difficult should that be?
I get the idea that FCD is off on a tangent, but agree if his point is that the original post really is about Trump, not Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh is a bystander in this. No sense in firing person A if the objection is person B didn’t act properly. As for Kavanaugh, seems to me that the incentives are still there for journalists to find whatever is to be found.
Fred;
You posted articles > 20 times on another post (mine) earlier. There is a limit to this. And the relevance is distant.
What was your point?
Kavanaugh is on the Court for life.
Because Trump liked his style?
Because Trump was President?
And may be again?
Because the GOP ran the Senate at the time?
And often still does?
Because the Constitution is (at least) a little screwy?
I appreciate your posting my replies, though.
I was pretty excited about what went down with the IRA passage,
and there was nowhere else to post anything about this important
legislation. Why was that? There still isn’t, actually. Strange…
Fred:
Any time you wish to write something besides a C&P, we (I) typically do not have an issue posting it in a separate post. Write something!
There was no response to your original post here for over 24 hours.
I had some difficulty understanding why you had put it up. It occurred to me that it had something to do with the issue of the propriety of Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment, some years after it occurred. That has much to do with Trump’s thinking (if we can call it that) about how to behave as president. I could have left it at ‘he got to be President because he appealed to the populace who wanted a rapscallion in office, because we haven’t had one, maybe since Andrew Jackson. Perhaps I should have left it at that, but I decided to bring up the news about Trump being angry because ‘his’ generals were less loyal than Hitler’s – or so he believed – and his chief-of-staff – a retired Marine general – explained to him that ‘at least Trump’s generals hadn’t tried to kill him’. Anyway, I felt you were owed a reply.
Fred:
Have you read the comments on the August 5 open thread? I wrote on SCOTUS there also and Hamilton’s Federalist Paper #78. It is not just Kavanaugh who was placed on the court without being vetted. It is the new majority who are aligned with a political party. Atrios’s comment fit with what I was saying.
Fred:
Early on when I first arrived at the Bear, we experienced many responses to our posts. It has changed for blogging. We average about 1000 hits per day of people coming by to read our pieces. Angry Bear is still a respected place. We made the Library of Congress well before other sites did ten years ago. I believe they are still tracking us. We are well rated by sites that rate blogs and consistent are amongst the better ones.
I do not look for verbal responses as much as I do hits on the post. Really, I do not need to explain this to a guy who mostly does C&Ps stuff, won’t write, and then wants to critique. I do not need 20 C&Ps on one post. Your answer on the Federalist Papers is???
You can complain to Dan too, if you like.
Of course the Federalist Papers were intended to sell the Constitution to skeptics of the post-Revolutionary period. On the whole, I’d rather be reading Golf Digest (or maybe Reader’s Digest.)
What little I have read seems ‘quaint’, but I do tend to believe in the efficacy of a ‘federal guv’mint’ over the disjointed apparatus of the US under the Articles of Confederation.
Fred:
In which case by reading Golf Digest (or maybe Reader’s Digest), you really do not have a basis for what you are touting on the issue. If you do not have a basis for your words, then how do you talk to an originalist?
I assume that there was not a real investigation into Kavanaugh’s penchant for drinking too much and harassing — assaulting?— girls and young women when he was in his teens and 20’s. Given that the President at the time had bragged about assaulting women before the election and the vast majority of the Republicans in the Senate did not hold that against him by the time of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, I am not sure what the investigation would have done other than satisfy Flake’s sense of propriety. Whether he lied about his respect for stari decises is similar— Collins bullshit notwithstanding— she is as much of a liar as the former President. At the end of the day, Kavanaugh is the least radical of Trumps SCOTUS nominees and I continue to believe Alito’s draft was leaked to frustrate Robert’s attempts to change Kavanaugh’s vote. Who did it? In the absence of evidence I think Thomas or his wife are the most likely suspects.
Terry
it is in the nature of political argument that one side demands “consistency” when it would suit their agenda.
it is in the nature of nature that there is no meaningful consistency from one event to another, no matter how much they look alike to the beholder.
this won’t stop me from demanding consistency when it suits my side, but it will stop me from taking it seriously (when it suits your side).
With the possible exception of John Roberts, every GOP-appointed justice on the SCOTUS is a loon. Is this anything to worry about?